A mad world: Ars analyzes the Mature-rated Wii market

Mature-rated games don't sell on the Wii. At least, that's the common …

When Electronic Arts announced Dead Space Extraction for the Wii—a follow-up to the million-plus selling PS3, 360, and PC title Dead Space—the company explained that the game would be used as a test case to see whether or not it would develop more Mature-rated Wii games in the future. And according to NPD sales figures, Extraction failed: it sold just 9,200 copies in its first week. So what does this mean for the future of Mature Wii games? Sega has publicly stated that it will "probably not" continue developing this style of game due to the low sales of Extraction. But are things really that bad? Ars digs into the numbers to see whether or not there really is a market for Mature games on the Wii.

A niche untapped

Sega also made an attempt to tap into this niche of the Wii market this year with two releases: MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill. The highly-stylized MadWorld, developed by Platinum Games, moved 66,000 units in North America during its first month of release. Overkill, meanwhile, sold only 49,000 copies in its debut month. Both titles were received well by critics, yet failed to pass the 100,000 unit threshold. However, despite these low numbers, Sega had still originally intended to continue developing Mature titles for the Wii.

"You have to push boundaries and explore," Sega of Europe's Gary Dunn explained. "I think while MadWorld commercially didn't sell what we were expecting I wouldn't say it's game over for mature Wii titles from Sega. We're taking a look at the resources we have now. We've got money to invest in development, we're just considering where to invest it next."

But the sub-10,000 sales of Extraction seems to have pushed Sega over the edge, as, like EA, the company was viewing the game as a test case.

"That was my litmus test," Sega's Constantine Hantzopoulos said on the 4 Guys 1up podcast. "Basically, you got EA, who can put all the marketing muscle behind this, an established franchise that scored quite well on 360 and PS3. They should be able to actually hit this out of the park, right?...At the end of the day, I just think that you're seeing kids are skewing much younger towards next-gen."

Of course, none of these three examples have necessarily well-known names attached to them. Sure Dead Space was a successful new intellectual property, but it's still very new and not well known outside of traditional gaming circles. MadWorld is an entirely new IP, and, while the House of the Dead series has been around for over a decade, its legacy has been mainly in the arcade scene, not home consoles. So what happens when an established, Mature franchise hits the Wii?

What's in a name?

There are currently three Resident Evil titles available on the Wii—a port of the GameCube/PlayStation 2 hit Resident Evil 4, and two light-gun shooters: The Umbrella Chronicles and The Darkside Chronicles. And while Capcom proudly boasted shipping over one million units of both RE4: Wii Edition and Umbrella Chronicles, actual sales numbers aren't quite so rosy.

Though we were unable to obtain sales numbers for specific titles, the NPD has confirmed to Ars that the Resident Evil series has moved approximately 1.44 million units on the Wii in total, which makes for an average of 480,000 per game. Not terrible numbers, but with both the popularity of the series and the large installed base of the Wii, one would expect much higher. In comparison, the PS2 version of RE4 has sold over two million copies, more than all three Wii games combined.

The other big Mature-rated franchise to make its way to the Wii is Call of Duty, in the form of 2008's Call of Duty: World at War and last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex. Again, while we weren't privy to individual sales data, NPD confirmed to Ars that the overall franchise sales of CoD on the Wii are 1.65 million. This makes for an average of 825,000 units sold per game, a far cry from the millions the series normally sells on other platforms.

What it means

What these numbers seem to show is that there is indeed a market for Mature games among the Wii audience, it's just not as large as on the PS3, 360, or PC. This audience also seems to gravitate more towards well-known franchises—particularly the Resident Evil and Call of Duty series—which shouldn't be all that surprising considering the game industry's propensity to focus on sequels and spin-offs.

And it's not as if new IPs stand no chance: No More Heroes has cracked the 100,000 unit mark in North America, which was enough to let Grasshopper Manufacture develop a sequel.

However, if Sega is any indication, the damage has already been done, and many developers and publishers are understandably wary of releasing Mature-rated games on Nintendo's console. Let's hope that there are still a few game creators out there willing to take the risk, as there is clearly a substantial niche of Wii owners looking for these types of games. One word of advice: let's lay off the light-gun shooters for a while, OK guys?